Boys at the OSE home in Le Vesinet

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

1948 (indexed as 1948)

Level

item

Extent

Photograph : Paper : printed : Ink : B&W ; Ht: 6,7 cm x W: 9,6 cm

Scope & content

B&W photograph with border. Outdoors. Group of boys posing in a yard. On the rignt is a young woman problably in charge of the group. Narrative: Jacques Kasma was born Jacques Kaszemacher on 1935-09-04 in the 10th arrondissement of Paris (France). His father was Uszer Hersz Kaszemacher, also known as Henric Kasmacher, born on 1913-04-05 in Parczew (Poland). His mother was Chaja Sura Bajwelcwajg, born 1915-05-19 in Warsaw (Poland). Jacques had a younger sister, Jeannine, born in 1937. In 1940, Henri Kasmacher was a driver in the French army. He was captured by the German armed forces in Saint-Die-des-Vosges (France) and was deported to the forced labour camp of Brunswiek, a subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp ( Germany). In 1943, Chaja Bajwelcwajg was arrested and interned at the Drancy transit camp (France). She died in Drancy on 1943-09-02. Jacques was hidden in Normandy (France) during the war. After Liberation, he spent time in an orphanage ran by the OSE in Le Vésinet. He met Marcel Marceau, a famous French mime, who taught him his art. Henri Kasmacher survived the war and came back to France and remarried to Ida Wolnowicz. In 1956, Jacques Kasma settled in Montreal (Canada) where he pursued an artistic career. He acted as a mime named Tit-Bo on the children's television program "La Boîte à Surprise". He worked at the National Film Board as an editor and director. He also worked with the filmmaker Gilles Groulx. He went back to France to fulfill his military service obligations and moved back to Montreal in 1960. He was part of the Douglas hospital psychiatric research team for 20 years.

Location

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Genre / form

graphic material

Format

Photograph

In the picture

BoyChildFenceGardenGroupGroup PortraitLawnPergolaTreeWomanTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

cjhn.caRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

French

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗2014_24_10.jpg